2008 Xmas letter

Seasons greetings once again as another year has flown
by.Hope this finds you well and that
you have had a good year.

On the family front we have hatch, match and dispatch
news.

There has been one addition of a great niece Ebony (born to
Steve’s sister Annette’s son Stuart) and Glen’s sister Annette is getting
married to Ian next March, happily no deaths to report.

Health wise Glen’s Mum had a hip replacement operation early
in the year and was walking well but later in the year had a fall and needed
the other one replaced.Steve’s Dad had
a pacemaker fitted in November and sounded better for it.Everyone else is doing well.

Claire is working with the same company and starting a
course to become a chartered accountant whilst David is presently back fitting
windows.

We are both very well and needless to say still enjoying our
nomadic lifestyle after an unbelievable 12 years on the road.Many new friends have been made with the
people we have visited through the various hospitality groups we are members of
and this has enhanced our travel experience greatly.

At the end of last year we were in Mexicotouring around with
our Canadian friends Ruth & Kevin following in their motorhome. We made it
all the way down Baja California and at the tip of Cabo San Lucas had our
English motorhoming friends Claire & Malcolm fly out to join us for 5
weeks.

We shipped across to Mazatlan on the mainland where Kevin
& Ruth headed off to Florida.Touring down the coast we visited many small fishing villages then
dropped Claire & Malcolm in Puerta Vallarta before venturing further south
– alone in Mexico for the first time.

All the horror stories we had heard proved unfounded and we
had a fantastic time and found the people extremely friendly, helpful and with
a good sense of humour.We enjoyed
Mexico so much and the motorhome was going really well that instead of selling
it and ending our trip in June we decided to return to Mexico for the next
winter.

After a most enjoyable journey throughTexas, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia we
picked up the coast to travel through Florida to visit our friend Ricky in
Miami.There we had a good time being
shown the area by a local and were glad not to have to drive the motorhome in
the horrendous traffic.

Near Orlando we parked Harry at Cypress Cove Resort.Our Australian friends Ken & Kay flew in
to visit us and to “house sit” whilst we flew back to England for 5 weeks.

It was great to catch up with family and friends but after a
couple of weeks the English summer weather was getting to us.We’d had only ever had E-mail correspondence
with fellow motorhomers Arf & Jean but arranged to meet up with them to do
a 1 week cruise on the Nile in Egypt.It turned out to be a fantastic trip with African Safaris in good
company.Even taking into account all
the things we have already seen we were seriously impressed with the different
temples and the pyramids.

When we flew back to Florida we took our youngest
grandchildren Natasha (8) and Daniel (10) with us.They had never been on such long flights before but coped
admirably.For the first time Harry had
to accommodate 6 of us as Ken & Kay stayed on for a few nights.It worked out really well although holding
the maximum of 8 would have been pushing it.

We had a great week at Cypress Cove resort, and must have
increased the profits of the sunscreen companies judging by the gallons we
slapped onto the kids.Moving up into
Orlando we had bought 7-day tickets for Sea World and Aquatica and got great
pleasure from seeing Daniel and Natasha enjoying the rides and shows.

After 2 weeks Claire & Daz flew out to join us on the
Disney campground.This was the focus
of the holiday and we visited every Disney attraction at least once and managed
a break at the coast in the middle.Having our grandchildren alone for 2 weeks and then the whole family together
worked out really well and it was quite strange once they left.

Reckon we must have picked up a hurricane special price as
we got a real deal on a 4-day cruise to The Bahamas at the beginning of
September.Unfortunately Steve walked
into a glass partition wall in the departure hall and almost knocked himself
senseless, or did he?Coupled with the
change of cruise itinerary due to a hurricane coming through things did not
work out quite as well as we had anticipated but we did enjoy half a day in Nassau
and now want to visit more Caribbean islands.

We took our time following the coast back to Texas, met many
new friends and really enjoyed places like New Orleans and San Antonio.In November Kevin & Ruth met up with us
to return to MexicoThis trip is to be
down the east coast, across the bottom then up the west.At one stage we hoped to drive down to
Panama but the high cost of insurance was the last of many obstacles that we
encountered and we threw the towel in on that plan.We still hope to do a few of the countries in Central America by
back packing from southern Mexico.We
think we will be spending Christmas on a campground on the outskirts of Merida
city and New Year in Cancun but nothing confirmed.

Next spring or summer we will sell Harry and move on to
pastures new.If you know of anyone who
wants to buy a very well laid out, reliable and much loved motorhomethen do let us know.As a bonus we would leave all the contents
and provide information on registration and insurance etc.

It is always good to hear news from our friends and family
so please send us an E-mail when you have chance.Visitors always welcome especially whilst we have this large
motorhome.

I will be posting my diary entries and a few photos twice a
month on the web site www.glenswatman.spaces.live.com
but if you would like to receive the diary by E-mail once a month then please
let me know, as I will be starting a new list for 2009.

Also when my laptop died I got a new one with Vista and this
will not open my address file so I would appreciate it if you would tell me
which E-mail address you prefer to use, your mailing address (and home address
if different), phone numbers etc so I can begin a new one.